The Devil's Dream: Waking Up (2 page)

"Fuck you, Art. Yeah, I want to know. This isn't politics anymore and we're about to send a kid fresh off his mom's tit to deal with Brand. I want to know what you and the boy genius over here have cooked up."

"Alright, boss. Your choice."

Art told him the plan.

J
ake sat down
five minutes ago, placing a pad and pen on the table. Art had gone to pick up Henry Werzen instead of Jake, because his name carried more weight. They needed Werzen to come along, and Jake was fine using small tactics to push the odds in their favor. Werzen had been rushed onto a private flight and then jetted across the nation for a sit down with Art Brayden, Director of Operations for the FBI. More, they were going to ask something of Werzen that one probably shouldn't ask a twenty-four year old. Jake was only twenty-eight, but still, that felt like a long way off from twenty-four. It felt like each year after the age of twenty pretty much added about ten years of wisdom. Even so, Jake couldn't play the role. Werzen could, though, if he wanted. Art already said if Werzen turned them down, they wouldn't force the assignment on him. How could they? The guy might look at this thing as a suicide mission, and Jake wouldn't fault him for doing so. They needed a lot of luck for this to succeed, but there wasn't any other choice.

Art opened the door and Werzen walked in, looking exactly like his photo. Not tall, maybe five-nine, wearing the glasses that Jake thought just a bit too hip, plus a jacket and tie.

"Henry Werzen, this is Jake Deschaine."

Jake stood up and extended his hand. "Pleasure to meet you."

"You as well," Henry said.

"Alright, let's all take a seat and get started here. I won't ask you about the flight because I know it was long and I know you probably didn't sleep much. Plus to be honest with you, Mr. Werzen, no one here has time for that kind of shit right now. You know who I am even if you don't know who Jake is, and that means you're here because of Matthew Brand."

Henry nodded. "I figured that much. How can I help?"

"What do you know about the case so far?" Jake asked.

"Not much. I know what they show on the television at night, but I don't follow it religiously or anything. I have my own cases to focus on, so being involved in this one isn't a priority. I know that there's a pretty big black-out in the north-east and I know he caused it. As far as I can tell, you guys don't have a lot of leads on his whereabouts. I know what he's threatening to do, basically destroy the sun and kill us all, right?"

Werzen knew what the average citizen knew and Jake wasn't sure if that was good or bad. Maybe it didn't even matter.

"Pretty much right on all counts. Do you know much about Brand's past?" Art asked.

"He killed a bunch of people trying to bring his kid back to life?"

Art smiled. "I couldn't have said it clearer myself. You have a basis for this thing and I'm not sure you need any more than that for what we're going to ask you to do. Brand has no family left. He's nearing his sixties; his parents are dead; he killed his wife, and as you know, his son is no longer here. What we're trying to do to lure him out is to make him think he has another son. We want him to think that his ex-wife had a child the year after she left him, but didn't tell him about it because she was too scared. The kid grew up, the FBI knows about him because the ex-wife told us, and we've reached out to the son to see if he can help us bring Brand in or calm him down."

Werzen's eyebrows raised higher and higher with each sentence until Jake thought they might just run off the top of his head.

"You want me to be Brand's pseudo-kid?"

Art nodded. "Yeah. We've looked into your background, your physical appearance, everything we can think of. You're the ideal candidate to play this role."

Werzen looked up to the ceiling while both hands went to his neck, where he undid the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie. "What would you want me to do?"

Jake looked down at his notepad. This was the insane part about all of this. The part that would lose this guy and the next and the next, because he'd have to have balls the size of cantaloupes or a few cogs slipping inside his head to consider it. Jake asked himself when they first came up with the plan what he would do if he was in Werzen's shoes and he simply didn't know. He had by luck alone fallen into his current place, but he could just as easily have been sitting over there like Werzen, being asked to do something not only dangerous, but perhaps stupid. Would Jake have done it? Would he have risked his life for a small chance of capturing Brand? He couldn't say he would.

"First, we just want you to get on the phone with him. After that, we'll probably want you to meet him. After that, we'll want you to find out where his new laboratory is at," Art said. Plain and simple, out there without teasers or added gifts. The plan was basic, and if they got Werzen to the laboratory then there wasn't anything else that need be done. They'd show up and they'd wipe the place completely out. Hell, if they couldn't get there fast enough, they'd send a plane to drop a few bombs on it. Whatever it took.

Werzen looked back down at Art. "You want me to meet with him? To actually see him face to face?"

"Yeah. I'm not going to act like this will be easy or that there isn't a chance you might die. We won't be following you in cars; we won't have planes circling overhead. It's going to be you and Brand, and you have two major jobs. Convince him you're his son and get back to his lair. Maybe three jobs, with the third being to stay alive. Nothing about it will be easy."

Jake watched Werzen stare right back at Art. Everything was in the open, their entire plan which consisted of
talk to this guy, try to find out where he's staying, and don't die on the way.
This kid was the best candidate but there were others too. It wasn't a problem of candidate pool size, but rather they didn't have the time to go through every single one of them. Art and Jake needed this kid to say yes so that they could start.

"Can I think about it for a night?" Werzen asked.

"Yeah," Art said. "It's three pm now. Let us know by eight tomorrow morning."

* * *

A
t least if
they were going to get Henry killed, they put him up in a nice hotel. He'd never stayed in anything like this before, the place resembled some place a movie star might visit rather than an FBI agent. Certainly the FBI out on the west coast never put him up like this before, but they'd also never asked him to go have lunch with a serial killer. Henry noticed everything about the hotel when he first arrived, before dropping his bags off and rushing down the street to meet Brayden and Deschaine. Now, as he walked beneath the vaulted ceilings and over the marbled floors, he saw very little of it.

If Art Brayden had asked Henry, instead, to come up with a theory to unify quantum physics and relativity, it would have been easier than this. Anything would have been easier than this.

Henry looked at his feet as he walked, something he'd done since high school whenever he puzzled over an answer he didn't know. The rest of the world ceased to exist outside of his thought process, and his subconscious did the guiding as he made his way to the elevator. He pressed the necessary buttons and walked out into the hallway ten stories higher.

He looked up for the first time since entering the hotel, realizing that he didn't remember which way he was supposed to walk down the hall. He remembered the hotel room number and looked at a sign pointing to the right, then his head was back down looking at his feet as he made his way to the room. He entered, lay down on the bed, leaving the lights off.

A lot of things ran through Henry's head. First, he wanted to call his brother, Greg. Henry said he would call once he figured out why he was being flown out here, although he thought it had to have something to do with Brand. Henry didn't know
why
they would want him for this case, but he knew of no other reason the FBI would pull him off his current four cases. Out of all the different possibilities he considered, none of them included this. What could he do, tell Greg the truth?
Hey, bro, wanted to let you know that they're asking me to play the role of Brand's long lost kid, and by the way, one of my directives is to stay alive.

What in the world would Greg say back to that?

No.

What about Mom?

What about me?

What about you?

All legitimate questions. Henry was about to tell his brother the most selfish thing he had ever considered.

I'm going to take a job that might get me killed. Sorry.

It was absurd and yet here he was unable to say no.

"I gotta call Greg," he said aloud. He reached into his pocket—not having bothered to take his clothes off; he'd flung his jacket over a chair, but he wore everything else—including his shoes.

Henry hit the button for his brother’s speed dial.

"So what's the news?" Greg answered.

Henry sighed into the phone. "You're not going to like it."

"You got AIDS?" Greg asked.

"It's worse than that."

"Just get it out, man. Why are you there?"

"You ready? They want me to act like I'm Matthew Brand's son. They want me to meet up with the guy and try to get back to wherever he is housing all these people."

The line was silent for a few seconds. "They want you to do what?"

"To act like I'm Brand's kid."

"His kid is dead, right? And his kid was black?" Greg asked.

"No, not his actual son." Henry paused and then laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. "They want me to act like I'm a kid his wife had shortly after she left him. They want me to act like a kid he's never met, one that he never knew he had."

"You know what this means, right? We're fucked. Not you and me per se, but humanity. This is what they're coming up with? They want you to play Leonardo DiCaprio and act like you're his son? That's the best they have?"

Henry didn't say anything. He didn't have to. His brother was right.

"You're turning them down?" Greg asked.

Lying on his back, Henry winced at the question. He knew his brother would expect him to turn it down, knew that his mother would too—if for different reasons.

"I'm not sure I can," he answered.

"You're kidding?"

"You want me to tell what amounts to the Vice President of the FBI that I can't do what he's asking me to do?"

"That's exactly what I want you to tell him. Your life isn't worth your career."

Henry opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. "You know what this guy is saying he's going to do, right? He's not saying he's going to kill some cops like when you were eighteen; he's saying he's going to kill the entire world. If I don't help, there might not be any life to talk about."

"Maybe. I don't know, but I do know that you don't have to risk yours to make sure these guys catch him. Have you talked to mom about it?" Greg asked.

The nuclear option. Mom.
It wasn't fair to bring her up, but at the same time, Henry knew it was the only question that really mattered.

"No. Not yet."

"Maybe you should give her a call and see what she says? I'm sure she'll love the idea."

"Greg, listen—"

"No, I'm going to get off. Call mom and let her know that you're about to go throw your life away. Let's hear what she has to say about it. Call me back once you get her opinion."

J
oe opened
his eyes and looked at the ugly wall paper in front of him. Paper flowers greeted him, flowers that probably once looked pretty but now were yellow from the chronic cigarette smoke that had wafted around this house over the past thirty years. Joe didn't move, not at first, intuitively expecting soreness the moment he decided to. Instead, he lay there, very still, and listened to a single thought in his head.

This is sobriety
.

He had forgotten what it felt to wake without a dependency. He forgot what it felt like to wake up with his mind still.

Sobriety.

He rolled over slowly so that he faced the room instead of the wall. His whole body ached; his stomach begged him to stop moving, because if he didn't, his core muscles might simply die. He reached up and put his hand to his mouth as he saw the room before him. Plates were stacked up in the corner, plates of uneaten food. Vomit was spread throughout the room like Joe had been trying to carpet the room with his half-digested food. A dirty pile of sheets lay in the corner, with what was most likely Joe's excrement covering them.

"Dear God..." He whispered.

It took all of this for him to sober up. What if Larry saw this? What would he think? Joe couldn't smell the disgusting stench around him, most likely because he had lain in it for the past...however long, his nose becoming immune.

Slowly, with the care resembling a ninety-year old woman, Joe swung his legs around and sat up on the bed. He couldn't ignore the cries from his body begging him to stop, to slow down, to lie back on the bed for another decade or so—but he pushed forward. His head swam a bit as he sat completely up; he put his head in his hands and looked at the floor for a solid five minutes, trying to keep from fainting. Everything looked different, or maybe he was just noticing his surroundings for the first time in years. Noticing
anything
for the first time in years. Before he had woken up today, his head was full of thoughts, full of screams and rants and rages, and even when he had a respite, it certainly was too busy to notice things like the carpet beneath him. He saw it now though, every single piece of fabric and the abuse each had taken over the years.

He knew why he went through all of that, knew it with a clarity that surprised him. There had been a lot of confusion leading up to this moment; he recognized that now. A lot of anger and hate and confusion. Looking at the floor though, Joe understood why the room looked as it did and why he was about to go downstairs and offer himself up for a lot more pain. There was no self-doubt here, no room for extraneous thoughts brought on by drugs.

Joe stood up, bracing himself on the bed as he did. His legs were worse than weak, they were water, his bones having morphed to a gelled state over the past...but he didn't know long. He breathed in and out, deeply, for a few seconds and then started his walk across the room. He dodged the vomit and opened the door, stepping through to the other side; and as soon as he did, he understood how rank the room behind him smelled. The smell of clean air hit his nostrils like a fist to the face. He couldn't remember the last time he smelled air this clean.

Joe looked at the railing in front of him, and then over to the stairs. The walk seemed like a long one, especially on his shaky legs, but the only other choice was to head back into the room he just exited. Joe started walking, grabbing the railing and making a slow go of it, but eventually he found himself at the bottom of the stairs and on the first floor of the house.

Charles Manning sat on the couch, his fat, tattooed body having not changed any during Joe's withdrawal.

"Well, that was tough, huh?" Charles said, not looking up from the television. Joe looked over to the TV set but didn't recognize the show. He wondered, for the first time in two years, if he would recognize any of the shows that were on TV now. Not any of the new ones, that was for sure.

"How are you feeling?" Charles asked.

"Weak," Joe said, his voice sandpaper rubbing across a gravel road.

"Clear headed, though?"

Joe nodded but didn't say anything. He kept his eyes on the television.

"Good. Now that we got the un-pleasantries out of the way, it's time for the really bad shit to begin. You ready to go find Brand?"

Joe affirmed that he was, indeed, ready.

* * *

"
L
arry
?" Joe said into the phone. He knew it was his brother, had heard him say hello, but it was like he wanted confirmation. He wanted to make sure his ears were relaying the truth to him, because for so long—he was now realizing—he shouldn't have trusted himself. For years his mind had been, if not lying to him, certainly not showing him the truth—not showing him reality. His mind somehow tricked him into thinking cocaine was reality and everything else extraneous bullshit. None of that was true though; Larry had been right. It was all garbage.

"Yeah, Joe. It's Larry. Who else would it be?"

Joe felt tears in his eyes. Had he cried over the last few days? He didn't remember, but he was close now. Sitting here using this drug dealer's phone, listening to his brother's voice, sober for the first time in years, he thought he might.

"I, um...I'm clean, Larry," he said into the phone, having no idea he would say it or what would come next.

"You're what?"

"I'm clean. I'm sober. I kicked it."

Silence came across the airwaves and Joe didn't interrupt it. He just waited.

"Are you lying to me?" Larry asked finally.

"No. I woke up today, finally through all the withdrawals."

Joe heard a whoosh of air come through the telephone, like his brother had been holding in a sigh for two years and was finally releasing it. "Oh, thank God. Are you okay?"

Joe looked down at the ground and the tears in his eyes fell. Dripping first to his face and then to the floor as gravity had its way with them. "Yeah, I'm okay, Larry. I'm exhausted, but I'm okay."

"Where are you? I'll come get you right now and bring you home."

The tears flowed faster as all the pain held inside over the past year rushed to the surface, ready to explode, ready to cast away the chains that he shackled it with inside his head. Joe closed his eyes. "I can't come home."

"What? Why not? If you're sober, why in the hell wouldn't you come home?"

And there it was, something he had missed because of the drug. His brother thought all of this stemmed from the drug, thought the whole thing, his entire search had been inspired and propelled forward by cocaine. He didn't understand that the cocaine only freed him to begin searching, had allowed him to escape the depression so that he could leave Larry's basement and start looking for Brand.

"I sobered up so that I could finish this, Larry. I'm going to find Brand. In the next week or so, I'm going to be face to face with him."

"Jesus Christ," Larry said. The relief that had owned his voice deadened, turning to the same tired expression Joe had grown used to. "You're not serious. You're not still going after him."

"I am. I...I just wanted to call you and let you know that I'm seeing things clearly now, for the first time in a long time. I wanted you to know, in case I don't make it out of what comes next, that I'm sober."

"Are you happy, though?" His brother asked.

That was a word Joe hadn't considered since he woke up. Joe didn't think himself capable of feeling happiness anymore, even now, with his mind as close to normal as he could get it. "I'm not looking for happiness, I don't think. I'm just trying to find justice."

More silence came over the line and again, Joe didn't break it.

"I hope you find it. Goodbye, Joe," he said.

Joe listened as his brother hung up the phone, thinking that he might have been dead to Larry long before this phone call.